The Imo Political Awareness Group (IPAG) have allegedly that it has uncovered moves by Senator Anyanwu and the Imo State chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party PDP, to derail the november governorship election.
The group went on to release alleged details of what it themed a well-orchestrated plan to blackmail INEC officials, sabotage security agencies, cause anarchy.
The group went on to expose what it themed, a grand conspiracy of IMO PDP to boycott polls, renew pressure for emergency rule.
These were contained in a press release signed by Mr. Collins Opurozor the Convener of the group and reads as follows:
The apex political enlightenment forum in Imo State, the Imo Political Awareness Group (IPAG), has intercepted credible intelligence about moves by Imo PDP to pull out from the November 11, 2023 governorship election in the State.
After a surgical analysis of the recent activities of the party and its governorship candidate, Samdaddy Anyanwu, IPAG has unimpeachable reasons to conclude that everything is now being done by this so-called candidate to generate controversies that would justify his premeditated exit from the race. This has become his eventual, natural and logical response to the collapse of the party right under his watch.
As the leading democratic watchdog in Imo, we, however, have no interest in PDP's impeding withdrawal from the election, since the right to aspire also presupposes the right not to aspire.
Nonetheless, what we find alarming and totally unacceptable is the plot by these avowed enemies of Imo people, working in league with certain anti-Imo forces in Onitsha, to stoke the fires of chaos and plunge Imo into anarchy so as to precipitate and achieve their face-saving election boycott.
Curiously, this is also a way they expect to realize the long-standing agenda of the party to create the conditions necessary for the declaration of emergency rule in Imo state.
It has become important for the public to know that for the past five months, these anti-democratic elements in PDP have been ruminating over this plot to derail the forthcoming governorship election in Imo and propel an emergency rule if the election would not go their way. Recall they earlier fired a warning shot on January 18, 2023 when they publicly tabled a request before former President Mohammadu Buhari to declare a state of emergency in Imo State.
This also possibly informed the unprovoked, infamous, boastful and treasonable outburst by Samdaddy shortly after he hijacked the gubernatorial ticket of his party, that he would neutralize the Governor of Imo State, Senator Hope Uzodinma.
What followed after that was shocking. An amorphous organization named Intersociety, operating in Fegge area of Onitsha, was drafted to heat up Imo and facilitate the collapse of state institutions, while also making excuses and defenses for the atrocities being perpetrated by the violent wing of this vicious opposition in Imo State.
On April 26, 2023 this Fegge organization began to enforce its deal by launching scathing attacks on the security agencies in Imo State. It released a piece of baseless falsehood, that conventional security forces deployed to Imo have fully transformed into terror squads and become more criminals than those they were deployed to checkmate. Two days later, the group betrayed its core motive and let out its mission to interfere in the November governorship election when it unwittingly announced that it was working to rescue Imo State from political gangsters.
On May 21, 2023, this same notorious Fegge organization increased
the scale and audacity of its scaremongering and terror tactic by announcing that humans were no longer living in Imo State. It went further to peddle a very bizarre lie, that slain dead bodies in Imo were being secretly smuggled into Umuahia, Port Harcourt, Aba, Enugu, Onitsha and Nnewi for indecent burials at nights.
To create more tension aimed at advancing the political objectives its paymasters in Imo PDP, the so-called Intersociety, on July 4, 2023, declared that 1,400 homes have been destroyed in Imo State. It provided no evidence and never explained the methodology for its survey. It was just a hatchet job.
On June 8, 2023, they shifted their onslaughts to the INEC, and maliciously accused the Resident Electoral Commissioner in Imo State, Prof. Sylvia Agu, and seventeen other top officials of the Commission in the State of corruption and incompetence. They never gave a hoot about the fact that the REC is a very respected scholar from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, whose integrity has remained unassailable. She is also an astute administrator and devout Christian.
On August 21, 2023, this same Onitsha group concluded in a press statement that it was certain that INEC in Imo State cannot conduct a participatory and credible election in November. The latent motive of this statement was to set the stage for crisis.
Satisfied with the successful execution of the assignments outsourced to the anarchy-fanning Intersociety, the terminally sick Imo PDP came up with a statement on September 8, 2023 designed to incite violence and uprising against INEC and erode public confidence in the Commission and its personnel by categorically saying that INEC officials, including the Imo REC, had been payrolled by the Government of Imo State.
It could never have been coincidental that this unwarranted, baseless, wicked and completely false allegation came just a week after Senator Samdaddy Anyanwu had gone to Abuja to declare that Imo had become a Boko Haram State. Meanwhile, this was the same Samdaddy who had toured round the twenty-seven LGAs of the State with his coterie of stranded supporters to say "Thank You" to non-existent PDP members.
In all the tours Samdaddy embarked on, there was never any reported incident of attack, harassment or violence. He had also planned to host a mega rally to mark his campaign flag-off and organize roadshows across the State, but for lack of funds, he had to cancel them.
Yet, the same man went to Abuja to say that Imo had become a Boko Haram State just to create pandemonium that would torpedo the forthcoming governorship election and establish a pretext for boycotting it, so as to start pressing for an unconstitutional change of government in Imo after January 15, 2024.
Already, some key members of Imo PDP campaign council have activated plans to sabotage and frustrate the deployment of security agents whose constitutional duty it is to ensure peace and order ahead of the election. They are even plotting to stop security agencies from coming to Imo and maintaining order. Has it not become clear that what these opposition henchmen are indeed plotting is the total breakdown of law and order in Imo State? Does it not go without any single doubt that the only thing that will excite these godless men is the relapse of Imo into the Hobbesian pre-political state with all the brutishness, terror, death and doom which that will portend for everyone? But the God of Imo State shall not allow them to prevail.
IPAG, therefore, calls on Imo people to resist the wicked plans of the ill-fated Imo PDP and stand firmly against their unpatriotic and bloodthirsty agenda.
One may wonder the crime that Governor Hope Uzodinma has committed to deserve this level of cruel conspiracy. It is simple to understand. Governor Uzodinma has refused to allow corruption, abuse of public trust and treasury looting to defile his administration. He has insisted that public finances must be deployed for public good. He has plugged all revenue loopholes and enthroned a regime of fiscal discipline and accountable stewardship, thereby revving up the internally generated revenues of the State by a record 400% in three years.
Governor Uzodinma has also disappointed all naysayers by building world-class legacy infrastructural projects in Imo. He has refused to surrender Imo State to the violent anti-state forces who the opposition elements are eternally sympathetic to, or even covertly collaborating with. The ultramodern hospitals he has built and equipped, the unparalleled welfare schemes for civil servants which he has provided, and his drive towards a viable and economically self-reliant Imo are things these enemies of the State do not want to see.
IPAG therefore condemns in the strongest terms the series of efforts by Senator Anyanwu and his party to blackmail, sabotage and undermine INEC and security agencies in Imo State who are discharging their lawful duties.
IPAG further reminds Senator Anyanwu that he was not compelled by anyone to hijack the governorship ticket of his party. Just as his decision to join the governorship race was voluntary, we counsel him to give peace a chance and find courage to quit the race voluntarily without worsening his fate. His dead-on-arrival conspiracies will only compound his woes. Imo State must never be destroyed, just like PDP in the State was ruined, because of the desperation of one man. Never!
IPAG enjoins Imo people to continue to repose absolute confidence in the capacity of INEC in the State to organize a governorship election in November which will surpass the global benchmark for free, fair, credible and transparent elections.
